Rolling Stone readers are more likely to find accounts of stars' hard-rock lifestyles than open letters condemning them in the pages of the magazine.
But after the tragic death of former Stone Temple Pilots and Velvet Revolver frontman Scott Weiland on Dec. 3, his ex-wife Mary Forsberg Weiland has published an open letter on Rolling Stone's website, asking fans to mourn Weiland, the human, and not memorialize Weiland, the rock star.
"Let's choose to make this the first time we don't glorify this tragedy with talk of rock and roll and the demons that, by the way, don't have to come with it," she writes.
The singer died in his sleep while on tour with his current band, Scott Weiland & the Wildabouts.
Written "with [the help]" of the couple's two children — Noah, 15, and Lucy, 13 — Forsberg Weiland's letter is a stinging, sad account of the toll addiction takes on a family. "The truth is, like so many other kids, they lost their father years ago," she writes. "What they truly lost on December 3rd was hope."
Forsberg Weiland's letter documents the tough relationship between her ex-husband and kids, as her attempts at "giving the kids a feeling of normalcy with their dad" were thwarted by Weiland's addictions and "multiple illnesses," which later led to her own depression. She shares that Weiland cut their children out of his life when he remarried, not inviting them to his wedding and often failing to pay child support.
"They have never set foot into his house, and they can't remember the last time they saw him on a Father's Day," she writes. "I don't share this with you to cast judgment, I do so because you most likely know at least one child in the same shoes."
In the letter, Forsberg Weiland pleads with parents to give their all to their kids; and with Rolling Stone readers to recognize rock music's long history of mental illness and addiction, and not to treat artists' struggles as entertainment.
"We read awful show reviews, watch videos of artists falling down, unable to recall their lyrics streaming on a teleprompter just a few feet away," she writes. "And then we click "add to cart" because what actually belongs in a hospital is now considered art."
Read the whole letter here.
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